Learn about VJ-Day with these WW2 Magazine Articles. Discover History in Our WW2 Articles.
An anonymous reporter relays all that came across his desk in the way of wild victory celebrations on VJ Day. Spread out over 14 paragraphs are eyewitness accounts of the pandemonium that spread across the nation when the news arrived that the war was over.
“Seven million New Yorkers let down their hair last night in the wildest, loudest, gayest, drunkest kissingest, hell-for-leather celebration the big town has ever seen.”
Click here to read about VE-Day in New York City…
Here is a smattering of editorial opinions collected from numerous newspapers across the United States concerning the Japanese surrender and the close of World War II.
Even though the war had ended some four months earlier, the American people were still receiving envelopes from the Department of War about the deaths and maimings of their sons when this article appeared.
These columns reported that peacetime took some getting used to, but day by day, the nation was slowly swinging into its post-war stride.
What if the Atomic Bomb had never been invented? When would the war have ended?
Articles about the daily hardships in post-war Germany can be read by clicking here.
If you’ve been looking for a manifesto that would serve as a document of intention for the entire mass of Americans who make up the Greatest Generation, you might have found it.
While the other articles on VJ-Day on this site illustrate well the pure joy and delight that was experienced by so many that day, this editorial cautions the G.I. readers to remember all that they have learned from the war while laying the groundwork for the policy that would check Soviet expansion all over the globe.
…There were crowds in Piccadilly Circus and Leicester and Trafalgar Squares. Quite a few people got rid of their waste paper by throwing it out the windows, a sign that the need for saving such things for the war effort was just about over.
Click here to rrad about VE-Day in London.
A short column filed by an eye-witness in Manila who described well the profound sense of melancholy that descended upon the W.W. II Japanese prisoners of war when they had learned of the Japanese surrender.
Click here if you would like to read an article about the Japanese surrender proceedings in Tokyo Bay.
Click here to read more articles about the liberation of Paris in 1944.
We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored.
Those were the words of General Douglas MacArthur when he opened the Japanese Surrender Proceedings on board the deck of the American battleship, U.S.S. Missouri on the morning of September 2, 1945. This report was filed by Yank correspondent Dale Kramer
Click here if you would like to read about the atomic blast over the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
Click here to read articles about post-war Japan.
Click here to read about August 28, 1945 – the day the American occupation began.
…On, on, on it went into the night and the next night as the biggest city in the world went its way toward picking up the biggest hangover in its history. It was a hangover few would ever regret.
Click here if you would like to read an article about the VE Day celebrations in Europe.
Click here if you would like to read about the VE Day celebrations in the United States.
In a city prone to revelry, New Orleans had prematurely celebrated the end of World War Two on three previous occasions; not willing to go down that path a fourth time, the residents were in a state of disbelief when the news of the Japanese surrender began to circulate all over again. However, when it was understood that this time the rumor proved true everyone seemed grateful for the rehearsal time.
